Canadian, Ian Welsh writes that  power and leadership requires that you must supply meaning and a way for people to belong.

"In the US the right has built institutions that supply meaning and the necessities to their followers. The Christian right supplies meaning for their people. They supply a narrative that pits their followers against the godless seculars in the rest of society. They tax their own people and redistribute that money (church tithing = taxation)."

Elsewhere on bopnews Stirling Newbury writes that the current wave of repression and right-wing ascendancy will find that one of it’s natural limits that will bring it down in the end is that they have outsourced ideology to evangelical Christians who cannot necessarily be controlled.

Indeed.  This is their point of vulnerability.  They have seized dominance in politics and there is not an effect opposition from the Democrats.  But we can reclaim the spirituality of our churches.  The further away from spirituality the right-wing ideology movement takes them, the easier it will be.

So keep the larger context in view: taking back our churches changes the nature of our own communities and the ways the channel our individual spiritual expression -- it also threatens one of the engines that makes possible the neo-conservative right wing project to grab power and expand repression.

Thus we can expect a backlash.